


sunday shoes

by bicroft



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Footloose AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 10:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13588242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bicroft/pseuds/bicroft
Summary: Zhenya had never fucking heard of Cole Harbour.





	sunday shoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eafay70](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eafay70/gifts).



> I had promised at least a little bit of this AU for Eafay's birthday so, here it is. ;) Happy birthday buddy!!!

Zhenya had never fucking heard of Cole Harbour.

Of course, even bumfuck nowhere, Canada was probably better than _his_ hometown- but, staying in Moscow with Sasha had spoiled him for big city life, a little, and the prospect of going back to living in a town where there was nothing to do made him want to claw his own eyes out.

North America was full of promise, though, and Canada had pretty much unlimited access to the two things Zhenya loved most in the world: good hockey, and rock and roll. So, really, it couldn’t be _that_ bad.

It was a full day on a plane, and then an hour or so on a bus before he was in town; once they hit the city limits, everything started to look like a postcard of a perfect suburb that Zhenya hadn’t even dreamed could ever be real. He wasn’t sure if he was awed or creeped out.

No one else got off at the stop with Zhenya, and it wasn’t hard to pick Seryozha out, waiting for him at the bus stop- but, that was partially because he was the only person there. He hadn’t changed at all since Zhenya had last seen him, give or take a few wrinkles, which Zhenya made sure to make him aware of after they traded hugs and greetings.

Seryozha snorted. “You’ll get old one day, too, Zhenya.”

“And, by then, you’ll be older,” Zhenya shot back, shoving his suitcase and duffle bag in the back seat and sliding into the passenger side. “So, I’ll always be winning.”

“Whatever you say, Zhenya.” Seryozha rolled his eyes as they pulled away from the bus stop. “How was the flight over?”

“Long,” Zhenya said, stretching his legs out best he could and stifling a yawn. “How’s Ksenia?”

“Busy, but good; we both are.” That got a smile out of Seryozha. “The girls are keeping us on our toes.”

“They’ve got to be so _big_ now,” Zhenya said, smiling a big himself.

“They’ll probably be waiting up for you,” Seryozha said. “They’ve been looking forward to you coming for months. Natalie’s just started school, so, you’ll have someone to practice your English with.”

“I’m sure my English is a _little_ better than that,” Zhenya huffed.

Seryozha shrugged. “You’ll be surprised,” he said, sounding amused. “She’s going to be talking circles around you, just wait.”

Zhenya laughed, and the ride continued in comfortable silence. He was exhausted, and his eyes kept drooping shut, but he did his best to keep them open as he stared out the window at the passing scenery, trying to take everything in at once. Cole Harbour seemed liked a quiet town, just like he’d thought; the sun was just barely starting to disappear over the horizon, and yet there didn’t seem to be another car anywhere on the road, and many of the houses they passed had already gone dark, lights off and curtains drawn.

“Is everyone here a grandmother?” Zhenya asked. “Or, does everyone in Canada just go to bed at sunset?”

“It’s Friday,” Seryozha said, as if that explained everything. He elaborated, though, once he caught Zhenya’s confused expression in the rearview mirror. “Town hall meetings are on Fridays. Usually, everyone in town is there.”

“ _Weird_ ,” Zhenya decided after a few moments. Seryozha snorted.

“You aren’t wrong,” he said, and then the car fell into silence again.

The silence was broken by excited shrieking as soon as they got to Seryozha’s house, and his daughters burst out the front door, immediately tackling Zhenya. They didn’t manage to knock him over, but he did stumble, with the added weight of his duffle bag on his shoulder.

“Planes take _forever_ to get here,” the older looking one- Natalie- said. “Mama said you were going to be here soon a whole day ago.” Seryozha had been right; her English sounded much better, much more _natural_ than Zhenya’s did.

“I’m try my best to tell plane go faster,” he said, the language feeling heavy and unnatural on his tongue, like it usually did. “But, no one is listen to me.”

“Adults are stupid like that,” Natalie said sagely, and her sister, Victoria, nodded in agreement as they both took Zhenya’s hand and started dragging him towards the house.

“Mama made dinner,” Victoria said, and Zhenya hadn’t known how _hungry_ he was until she said so, and the smell of food hit his nose.

“Your mama is best,” he said, and he heard a laugh from behind him that meant that Seryozha had heard him.

Dinner with the Gonchars was nice, even if Zhenya almost fell asleep several times sitting at the table. Ksenia was good at small talk, and Natalie and Victoria were good at making him laugh, and it made him miss home, and feel better about leaving in the same moment. He was happy when he was able to collapse into bed, though, deciding that unpacking could wait until morning.

As soon as he closed his eyes, he heard a car rush past his bedroom window, sounding like it was burning rubber and breaking through the otherwise almost eerie stillness that Cole Harbour seemed to have about it. Zhenya smiled. There was _someone_ who wasn’t too boring in this town, then. Somewhere.

-

Sid had just _barely_ gotten sat down at his desk when he heard his dad’s car roll into the driveway, and he couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief, even as he rushed to turn to a page in his textbook, and then to a blank one in some random notebook.

He couldn’t make his eyes focus on the page as he heard feet climbing up the stairs- slowly, like normal, not pounding. Not angry. _He doesn’t suspect anything_.

He couldn’t help but jump at the knock on his doorframe, but managed to school his face into a smile when he looked up. “Hey, dad. How’d the meeting go?”

His dad managed to smile back. “Pretty good,” he said. “Passed that new motion I was looking to, pretty unanimously.”

Sid’s stomach dropped, but he’d gotten pretty good at not showing it. “The, uh. The one about the music, right?”

“And the dancing,” his dad said, and Sid felt like he was going to be sick. “Finally gonna get that sickness out of our town.”

“Sounds great,” Sid said, swallowing thickly. “I’m just gonna- finish this, and go to bed, yeah?”

“Good,” his dad grunted. “Lights out by ten, Sidney.”

Sid pushed another smile. “Yes, sir.”

His dad nodded, and that was that. Sid turned his gaze back to his desk, making himself just breathe until the sound of footsteps disappeared back downstairs.

It was only a year or two before he could go off to college, and it was shining like a lighthouse on a faraway shore, close enough to see, but not close enough to touch. He had had one- just _one_ outlet that wasn’t for his father’s eyes, and of course, he’d had to go and ruin it.

He didn’t get any work done, and he knew he’d pay for it when he had to spend most of his free time tomorrow doing it instead, but he couldn’t bring himself to focus on the page. In the end, he gave in the ghost and got ready for bed, so that he could at least stair out into nothing in a more comfortable position.

“Just a few more years,” he said whispered when he closed his eyes, as a prayer to take place of the prayers he’d been taught when he was a kid, and hadn’t said in years now. “Just a few more months.”

He could probably keep his secrets for a few more months.

=

Church was entirely different than Zhenya was used to. Instead of standing together, mingling as one like he was used to in the Orthodox churches back in Russia, everyone was sitting quietly and separated in rows of seats, heads either bowed, or staring silently and raptly ahead and the man lecturing in the front. It was _weird_ , and almost eerie- but, the Gonchars didn’t look like they were buying too much into it, either, so he figured it’d be okay if he begged out of it after a while.

When he scanned around, Zhenya could see a lot of people his age there, most of them slumping in their seats, obviously zoned out. In the very front was a boy who seemed to be paying attention though, sitting up straight- or, he _would’ve_ been paying attention, if Zhenya didn’t catch him with his eyes wandering. Their eyes locked, and the other boy’s eyes went wide for a second before he flushed, smiled politely, and turned back around.

Zhenya felt his own face heat up, even though he’d done nothing wrong. The guy was- striking, if nothing else; he looked like he chiseled statue, cheek bones cut from marble, dark haired and doe eyed, and- _shit_. Zhenya had thought he’d left this shit back in Russia, but, apparently not.

“- And, we can all rest easier now that the scourge of unholy music has left our town once and for all, and rejoice in welcoming a new member into our congregation from afar; coming all the way from the Soviet Union, I believe it’s- Eugene? If you could stand up, Eugene?”

Zhenya looked around for a moment before Seryozha nudged him, and he realized that the man was talking about him. He stood, feeling somewhat like a deer in the headlights, and instead of the greeting he’d intended, what came out of his mouth was: “Is Evgeni.”

The- preacher? Were they called preachers, here? Zhenya thought they were- frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“My name is Evgeni,” Zhenya said, a bit louder than before, and he could hear Seryozha sigh from where he was seated beside him.

The preacher cleared his throat, and gave Zhenya a smile that didn’t feel at all real. “Evgeni,” he said, and it sounded entirely wrong on his tongue. But, Zhenya was expecting that, so he only flinched a little. “At any rate, welcome.”

Zhenya sat down slowly, feeling eyes on him the whole time he did, and then for the rest of the sermon. Where there was silence before, there were intermittent whispers, and Zhenya didn’t think that he was imagining that those were pointed at him as well.

He hung outside the church once the sermon was over as Ksenia and Seryozha talked to other members of the congregation. Neither of them looked much like they fit in to the crowd, but they were talking all the same, the girls hanging onto their legs. Zhenya was standing just outside the church itself, staring at the ground with his hands shoved into his pockets to deeply that they might poke through at any moment.

“You’re Evgeni, right?”

His head shot up, and he was faced with the guy from before, smiling at him and looking almost as nervous as Zhenya felt. His name sounded much more natural on his tongue than it had on the preacher’s, and it made Zhenya smile. “Yes,” he said, the start of the word somewhat clumsy, reaching his hand out to shake the guy’s.

“I’m Sidney,” he said, shaking Zhenya’s hand. “Or- Sid, whichever works.”

“Nice to meet you, Sid.” Zhenya had never been happier for the short nature of North American nicknames; Sid was easy, Sid was something he could remember. (Something he _would_ remember, many, many times, he figured.)

“We don’t get new people around here a lot,” Sid said. “Last people were probably Gonch and his wife- or, uh, Sergei.” He clarified at Zhenya’s confused look. “But, that was years ago. So, I just… wanted to say hi.”

“Hi,” Zhenya echoed, and he knew he probably sounded like an idiot, and was smiling like one, too. “Thank you. I’m- not good at English, yet. Nice of you to come talk to me.”

“You seem plenty good to me,” Sid said, he cheeks a little pink. Zhenya knew that was a lie, but he appreciated, and preened a little anyway.

“Everyone right,” Zhenya said. “Canadians so nice.”

Sid laughed, and it sounded like a farm-animal, but Zhenya felt a little endeared by it anyway. “You’d be surprised,” Sid said. “But, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Sid said, and they both just stood there smiling at each other for a moment before Sid cleared his throat, pink spreading from his cheeks up across the rest of his face.

“I should- go,” he said. “My dad only sticks around talking to people after the sermon for so long. He usually likes to go home and- reflect, after, while mom works on dinner.”

Zhenya blinked and then frowned. “Your dad is…?”

“Yeah,” Sid said, the word almost a sigh. “He’s- yeah.”

Zhenya bit his tongue to keep from saying ‘I’m sorry.’ “He’s seem- nice.”

“You don’t have to lie about it,” Sid snorted, but, he did smile all the same. “I’ll… see you around?”

“See you around,” Zhenya echoed, and they stood there staring at each other for a few more moments before Sid actually walked away. Zhenya watched him, open mouthed and gawking before he caught himself, shook his head, and came to his senses. This was absolutely the _last_ thing he needed to do; he’d left his stupid crushes back in Moscow, and he wasn’t going to bring him here.

Still.

Still, there was- _something_ when Sid looked back at him when he was walking out to the car with is parents and smiled, something that Zhenya couldn’t put his finger on. It cut through the air the same way the sound of screeching tires had a few nights ago. Even if he was through being stupid, at least he might’ve succeeded in making a friend, and at least school would be a little more interesting on Monday.

 _Shit._ He had to go to _school_ on Monday.


End file.
